Traditionally, in-person transactions involve generation of physical copies of transaction information (e.g., receipts), and may require both a resource requesting user and a resource providing entity to maintain such physical copies. This becomes cumbersome when performing large numbers of transactions, in terms of both storage as well as the resources required to produce paper transaction receipts (e.g., paper, ink, printing devices, etc.).
Illustratively, a first party may wish to access a resource at a second party. The first party may provide some authentication data to the second party, and the second party may submit an authorization request message to an authorizing entity. The authorizing entity may then authorize access to the resource and may provide an indication of this in electronic form to the second party. The second party may then print out a paper copy of the authorization and may request that the first party sign or otherwise verify that it has agreed to any terms and/or conditions required by the authorizing entity as a condition to access the resource. The signed paper copy or duplicate thereof may then be retained by the first and second parties for further processing.
While the above-described transaction process can be used, a number of improvements could be made. For instance, the conventional process is inefficient as it requires the storage and use of paper copies of authorization documents.
Thus, new and enhanced methods for confirming access to resources are desired. Embodiments of the invention address these and other problems, individually and collectively.